was then a
widower, wished to marry Helen, the daughter of the grand prince, but
he wished, very naturally, first to see her through the eyes of his
embassador, and to ascertain the amount of her dowry. To this request
a polite refusal was returned.

"How could one suppose," writes the Russian historian Karamsin, "that
an illustrious monarch and a princess, his daughter, could consent to
the affront of submitting the princess to the judgment of a foreign
minister, who might declare her unworthy of his master?"

The pride of the Russian court was touched, and the emperor's
embassador was informed, in very plain language, that the grand prince
was not at all disposed to make a matter of merchandise of his
daughter--that, _after_ her marriage, the grand prince would present
her with a dowry such as he should deem proportionate to the rank of
the united pair, and that, above all, should she marry Maximilian, she
should not change her religion, but should always have residing with
her chaplains of the Greek church. Thus terminated the question of the
marriage. A treaty, however, of alliance was formed between the two
nations which was signed at Moscow, August 16th, 1490. In this treaty,
Ivan III. subscribes himself, "by the grace of God, monarch of all
the Russias, prince of Vladimir, Moscow, Novgorod, Pskof, Yougra,
Viatha, Perme and Bulgaria." We thus see what portion of the country
was then deemed subject to his sway.

Ivan III., continually occupied in extending, consolidating and
developing the resources of his vast empire, could not but look with
jealousy upon the encroachments of the Turks, who had already overrun
all Greece, who had taken a large part of Hungary, and who were
surging up the Danube in wave after wave of terrible invasion. Still,
sound judgment taught him that the hour had not yet come for him to
interpose; that it was his present policy to devote all his energies
to the increase of Russian wealth and power. It was a matter of the
first importance that Russia should enjoy the privileges of commerce
with those cities of Greece now occupied by the Turks, to which Russia
had access through the Dnieper and the Don, and partially through the
vast floods of the Volga. But the Russian merchants were incessantly
annoyed by the oppression of the lawless Turks. The following letter
from Ivan III. to the Sultan Bajazet II., gives one a very clear idea
of the relations existing between the two countries at tha